


Do Angels Have Souls

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be a slow night on the science vessel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Angels Have Souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VerboseWordsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerboseWordsmith/gifts).



It was supposed to be a slow night. The rest of the staff had been dismissed for the evening, so Aleia had turned down most of the auxiliary systems on the upper deck, leaving her office the only section currently still active. There was paperwork to be done, and it was always easier to deal with it in the peace and quiet of the night cycle, with none of the hustle and bustle that accompanied her staff going about their regular activities.

Hence, Aleia was rightfully annoyed when she heard the beep of her intercom, almost unnaturally loud in the quiet of her office.

She pressed the button, readying a scolding on her lips for whoever dared interrupt her.

“ _Professor Aleia_?” came a soft, distinct, yet very unexpected voice. Aleia knew that voice, just as everyone in their Quadrant knew it from the holovids that played over their comm networks day in and day out, but she’d never had the arguable pleasure of hearing it in person. _“I was told I could find Professor Aleia here_.”

“Come up,” Aleia said curtly. “I’ll leave the door open for you, take the Level 4 turbolift.”

Her visitor would take eight to ten minutes to arrive on deck, so Aleia took that time to close up her office and power up the lab, booting up the computer in pre-emptive expectation.

Aleia, who was deeply dedicated to her work, understandably rarely paid any attention to the pop culture gossip of their society. She rarely watched holotelevision at all, but her staff did, and in the daily routines of varying personalities sharing this space together during the day’s work cycle, one was bound to pick up a few things here and there.

Especially the _big_ things; the ones that had tongues a-wagging all the way from the Janus Nebula to the Nami Astreroid Belt.

Aleia had slipped on her laboratory coat and settled into a chair when the doors opened with a soft hiss.

Her visitor was smaller in person than she appeared in holovids, but none of those remote images had done justice to the sweetness of her smile and the striking of her blue-grey eyes, though those shortcomings still paled in comparison to the wondrousness of her voice when she opened her mouth and said, “Professor Aleia, I was told that—”

“Aleia, please,” she said, beckoning the child forward. “I imagine you must have had a difficult journey, coming all the way out here from the Central Systems. That is not a trip for the faint-hearted, and I must commend you on making it in one piece, and alone, so it seems. Would you like a drink?”

“No,” the child said quickly, urgency in the way she wrung her hands together, wrist-fins flaring. “This is important, my father doesn’t know I’m here, but his Police might have been told by now, I don’t know, and I won’t go back. _I won’t_.”

Ah, so the princess was well-versed enough to know that Aleia’s science division answered to Parliament, and not to her Sovereign father. This meant that Aleia and her people had very little loyalty for the Central Empire, and Aleia herself was not bound to care either way over anything the Emperor did.

“Very well.” Aleia sighed. Despite the innate foolishness of this, she still felt a pang of sympathy for this child, a golden treasure of the Central System who had likely no idea what she was getting herself into. “I suppose it’s true, then. The rumours that you have been visiting the Blue Planet with increasing frequency since your thirteenth birthday, all for the sake of an Earthling.”

The princess child flushed, head bowed. “It’s all true. And I can bear it no longer. I love him, and I wish to be with him, always. I heard...” She raised her eyes, and Aleia knew it was those beguiling blue-greys that bewitched all who’d ever known her. “I heard you can make that possible.”

Aleia frowned, briefly irritated that such knowledge had apparently been leaked off the ship without her leave. “That technology is still in the experimental stage. We don’t know what side effects there will be in the long term.”

“I don’t care,” was the simple answer. “I am willing.”

Aleia wondered if she’d ever been as young, as hopeful, as the girl now standing before her. The youngest princess of the Royal House was one of the finest specimens of how passion lacked understanding, and Aleia could feel nothing but pity for her, as she knew that the child would not leave without getting what she wanted. Even if the Police finally did come and take her away, she’d find a way out, then find new means of achieving her goal, regardless of cost or sense.

In that vein, it was only logical that Aleia accept this challenge, for when would she ever get the chance to do such a procedure on a willing subject? The data alone makes Aleia quiver the possibilities.

“Your DNA will be rewritten from the inside out,” Aleia said, firing up the machine. The power surge would be noticed from the outisde, no doubt, but the patrols would take a fair amount of time navigating the asteroid belts to get here, and by then the princess would be long gone. “Then it will rebuild your body, segment by segment and muscle and muscle. It will not be pleasant.”

The child swallowed, and carefully started removing her clothing. “I am willing.”

“When it is done, your skeleton will be internal, your outer flesh vulnerable and soft. You will have only two eyes, with one lid for each,” Aleia said. “You will have one mouth, one pair of hands, and no fins.”

“No fins?” the child gasped softly.

“Yes, and you will be mute,” Aleia said, wondering if this last piece of information would be enough to sway her. “Humans don’t speak the way we do, but I’m sure you’ve realized that by now. They have vocal cords, which you have no experience with, and will not know how to manipulate.”

“They don’t...” The child’s ear fins fluttered nervously. “They cannot mindspeak?”

“No.” Aleia carefully retracted her hands from the keyboard, letting them rest by her sides instead. “They don’t have the capacity for it.”

The child let out a low hiss. It was a sound of emotion and anguish, but the sheer beauty of her voice made it a song to Aleia’s ears.

“Let’s proceed,” the princess said.

* * *

That would have, perhaps, been the end of it.

The Police came by, but there was little they could do save growl menacingly, to which Aleia merely rolled her eyes. None of the press came by to get a statement, seeing as the ship was too far out of the Central System for any of them to bother. Some of the staff voices regret about that, but Aleia hushed them quickly.

As for the child herself, Aleia figured that she would go to Earth in a couple of years to fetch some readings from the tracking device she’d put in the princess’ foot, but that would only happen a fair time in the future. It was enough, for now, to put a little reminder about it in her personal computer and leave it be, returning her attentions to her projects as where they rightfully belonged.

Only, then came the day when the ship came under attack.

As a science vessel they were very heavily protected when it came to shields, but they had little in ways of offensive weapons. All it took was one breach and they were penetrated, alarms blaring and staff panicking at this unprecedented event.

Aleia remained calm, as she always did, waiting in her lab until the doors burst open under the assault of pulse bullets.

Three daughters of the Royal House charged into the room, the eldest and tallest leading the way. As soon as she spotted Aleia, she raised her pulse rifle, cocked it, and pointed it deliberately at Aleia’s throat. “You will give us the means of fixing her. Right now.”

Aleia sighed.


End file.
